Choosing a Niche Product to Dropship

Time and time again I recommend that you choose a niche product to dropship from your website or sell on eBay. But how do you choose your niche? The following are brainstorming tips to help you come up with a niche product that can be sold online.

First: Check Your Purchases. Many prospective online entrepreneurs try to think of really out-there products like unicycles or bamboo knitting needles so they can enter a market that isn’t too saturated. This is a good idea in some respects, but one of the most important factors when choosing a product is to choose something that people actually buy online. One way to brainstorm this type of product is to think what you yourself buy online.

In the past month, I’ve bought three second-hand novels written by Mildred Walker, a pair of studded motorcycle boots, a Hebrew-printed t-shirt, tickets to a murder mystery play, a pair of Cubs swim trunks, and a calligraphy set. Not surprisingly, almost all of my purchases represent niche markets. Why is that? Because with the exception of a few broad categories like electronics, most items bought online are niche products. This is because common, general products can easily be purchased at physical locations close to your home. You go online to find unusual items that can’t be bought at the mall.

Second: Check Logistics. Let’s assume that I want to dropship my products, not purchase them wholesale. This means that some of the products I purchased last month are out of the running for my niche inspiration. Used books aren’t generally dropshipped, and neither are theater tickets. Shoes and clothing are usually sold wholesale, but in this case the items that I bought might still be appropriate since they weren’t common apparel and accessories. The studded motorcycle boots might be a good candidate for a dropship niche product for a few reasons: first, they are a product that’s not easily found in local stores. I bought those boots online because after searching the three malls in my area I couldn’t find anything quirky enough to satisfy my Sarah Connor Chronicles obsession.

The studded motorcycle boots are a good pick for another reason: they’re a theme product that I could easily build a whole product line around. With the boots as my central product, I could have a goth/punk/emo website, a motorcycle apparel site, or a studded leather accessories site. Finally, while I might not be able to find this product through a dropship supplier, they are expensive enough that I could possibly use a wholesaler to dropship them. Let’s say my wholesale supplier has a $100 order minimum: if a single pair of studded boots costs $125, I can likely have single pairs shipped directly to my customers even though the supplier is ostensibly a wholesaler.